Industry Moves: Lionsgate Appoints CinemaNow CEO as Digital Head

Lionsgate Entertainment, without a digital executive for a while now (last was Adrian Sexton, who was VP of digital media and left in May 2006), has finally found it important enough to appoint someone, but didn’t go too far to find the person: it has appointed longtime CinemaNow CEO Curt Marvis as president of digital media, a newly created position at the studio, reports THR. LGE has been the lead investor in the online movie service since it was founded in 1999.

CinemaNow itself has been languishing from slow growth, the same fate that its rival Movielink (now part of Blockbuster) had. The company will appoint a new CEO soon, it said, and Marvis remains chairman.

At LGE, Marvis will oversee digital distribution at all Lionsgate divisions including home entertainment, TV, film and music and the company’s stakes in Break.com, FearNet and the premium cable venture recently announced with Viacom (NYSE: VIA), MGM and Paramount. Despite no dedicated executive for a while, LGE has been active in the digital space, through deals with Microsoft’s (NSDQ: MSFT) XBox Live Marketplace and Apple’s (NSDQ: AAPL) iTunes, among others.